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[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I'm just putting this here so I can rustle Fast Jimmy's Jimmies.

 

So, what's everyone's opinion here on Save Import? More specifically, story-oriented Save Import.

 

We've seen character/party based Save Import before, where you are able to take characters from one game and import their stats/equipment into the sequel (certain Wizardries and Gold Box games to name a few), but how do you feel about importing world states and story decisions into the next iteration of the series? 

 

It's becoming fairly common now, with Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Witcher all employing some form of Save Import. 

 

I can understand why some people argue for it, in series where the protagonist stays the same, it helps to enforce continuity and the idea that your series playthrough is truly your own. I am personally against the idea, especially if what we have now is all that will ever be of the mechanic. 

 

Still, interested to hear your thoughts. 

 

Especially on how Save Imports could improve (ideas on how to structure them differently).

 

[CybAnt1]

I don't know. It's an interesting question to me where along the line, "choices and consequences matter" (in a particular game you're playing, that started with Wasteland, before Fallout, as everyone notes), became ... "choices and consequences will lead to a world state that carries over from one game to the next in a series." 

 

I do agree it seems to make more sense in a game series where the protagonist stays the same (ME) to one where s/he doesn't (DA). 

 

I guess I have mixed feelings about it. OK, if I put Joe Kingship on the throne, I want an epilogue at the end of the game telling me he was a good ruler, and put a chicken in every pot, and a horse in every stable. That's recognizing my choices and consequences. Thing is, in the next game, would I throw a hissy fit if for some plot-reason, Joe Kingship isn't king but it's really Fred Understudy? 

 

What I suppose I'm saying is this has become an insistent, prevailing expectation. Your world state from one game MUST carry to the next. EVERY piddling thing you did! If you left graffiti on the Smalltown outhouse, well, if you go by that same outhouse in the next game, your graffiti better still be there! 

 

Does it have to be that way? Maybe what FJ sees as the growing Keep/SaveImport debacle is a corner Bioware painted themselves into, and they didn't have to? 

[bEVEsthda]

In my opinion, it's the entirely right thing to do for story sequels, like Baldur's Gate, DA:Awakening and Mass Effect. A must in that case.

 

But, also in my opinion, it's best entirely avoided in other games which only happen to belong to the same franchise. In my opinion, Bioware is making a mistake by adopting some imports through DA. Also, they're making a mistake with returning characters. There should be no such. It's marketing's fantasies, about an "iconic" world, populated by licencable "iconic" characters, which confuses their decisions.

[dzs Angel]

I like the idea of the keep. PC´s and NPC´s help you to identify yourself with the role you´re playing. If you are familiar with the game and its characters, it adds to replayability.

[Remmirath]

I like it, although it clearly does create some complications. If the decisions you made in the first game would have some effect on the proceeding games, I do like to see that carried through. I find it satisfying, and also interesting to see how different things ended up. I don't consider it a necessary feature -- Baldur's Gate II, for instance, got on fine without it (although it might've been neat to have) -- and in games that do not follow soon after one another to feature the same cast of characters, it is probably more trouble than it is worth. I would not see either Icewind Dale II or Fallout 2 having benefited from such a feature, for instance.

With the number of bugs introduced by the save imports, however, I'm inclined to think the Keep method is probably the better way to go. I withhold full judgement on that system until we see it in action, but in principle, it seems like it should work well enough. The only problem is that people who don't have an internet connection can't use it, but I suppose that is probably not a large number of people.